HIGH-FAT AND REFINED CARBOHYDRATES KILL DIABETICS

Report #7289

All diabetics should markedly restrict fat and refined carbohydrates from their diets.

Diabetes causes terrible tissue damage including blindness, deafness, loss of feeling, burning foot syndrome, kidney damage and heart attacks and strokes. When blood sugar levels rise too high, sugar attaches to cells and is converted to a poison called sorbitol that destroys tissue. Dietary fat causes high blood sugar levels by preventing sugar from entering muscles and other cells, thus keeping sugar in the bloodstream and driving it up to high levels (1,2,3). Everyone knows that eating sugar causes an immediate rise in blood sugar, but many do not know that refined carbohydrates made from flour cause almost as high a rise in blood sugar as pure granulated table sugar. Eating the whole grain does not cause the same rise because it takes time to release the sugar from the capsule on a whole grain. Fiber binds to other foods and delays their entry into the blood stream to keep blood sugar levels from rising too high. Fruit should be eaten with meals to delay blood sugar rises.

So diabetics should restrict fat and replace refined carbohydrates with whole grains. It's fruits, vegetables, whole grains and beans.

By Gabe Mirkin, M.D., for CBS Radio News